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A transplanted Southern Californian living in North Dakota Idaho, with some insights on life with deaf dogs, a gluten free spouse, and the occasional mischievous garden gnome. Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoy.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Goodbye Huge Elm Tree

We had some fierce winds for several days over the last week, with gusts over 50 mph on more than one occasion. The wind brought down a large tree branch of our neighors across the street, which led to a tree maintenance crew coming out to clean up the debris.

While they were out here the arborists with the local Parks and Recreation District (they're responsible for maintaining the trees on the berms) noticed that the huge old elm tree on the Northwest corner of our lot had a pretty large hollow cavity at the base, seen above. They left a note in our mail slot on a Wednesday morning that said the tree would have to be removed. The time frame for the tree removal was pretty vague though, it said "crews would be on site either later that day or within the next couple of weeks".

My expectation of the speed of local government entities is till stuck on California time though and I fully expected them to come take down the tree at the end of that two week period (or longer). I forget that I live in North Dakota now, city services are pretty awesome, damn responsive, and actually can get things done quickly (when they want to). A work crew was on site by 1:00 that afternoon, there was barely enough time for us to say goodbye and mourn the loss of our tree.

It's always sad to lose a large tree in the garden and Alycia was pretty bummed out. It has drastically changed the complexion of the garden though, and not just the big empty space where the tree used to be. The whole area underneath and sections of the front garden that were full to part shade are now full to part sun. It's a substantial change in the amount of sunlight that a large of swath of the garden receives. Suddenly plants that were unthinkable in various front yard locations have become feasible.

The work crews that arrived at 1:00 had reduced that elm tree to the stump you see below by 4:30 that afternoon. They cut it down and hauled away all the debris, leaving only a stump and a layer of sawdust coating part of the front yard. The additional sunshine that comes through this space and allows us more "full sun" plantings will make up for the loss of this elm tree, and we've been promised that the stump will be ground down in the Fall and a new tree will be planted in the space next Spring, but it's still sad to lose a tree.

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All words and pictures on the blog are mine and the property of ME, please do not use them without my permission. If you ask (a simple e-mail is all), I'm more than likely to grant permission, but if you don't ask, well that'll make me grumpy.